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the official Channel F thread!


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Hi folks - I am pretty new here. I collect old consoles and micros especially 8 bit systems and last year I acquired a Grandstand Channel F (I am in the UK) and I have picked up a few cartridges for the system.

 

This week on Ebay I bought cartridge 12 and when I opened it I found the cartridge wrapped in plastic with some pretty ancient sellotape and I was wondering is this an unopened cartridge or has someone carefully wrapped it up after using it? I have tried to find out if this is how the cartridges originally came in the UK but not been able to find anything. I am not a "factory sealed" collector (games are for playing) but I am very curious about this one.

 

Does anyhone here know if this is the original packaging or not? I would really appreciate any comments or ideas!

box-shrunk.jpg

cart-shrunk.jpg

Edited by nolivesleft
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(I'm just going to lazily quote my status update)

The power supply on my Fairchild Channel F is buzzing and I can feel it vibrating, I think it's time for me to figure out how to replace it, I was thinking of chopping it off and getting a new power supply that uses the same amps and volts that the Channel F uses, but I'm super new to repairing things, anyone see any problem with me doing that? (just an FYI, my Channel F isn't in the greatest cosmetic condition so it's not that big of a deal if I mod it in my eyes because no matter what, it's never going to be museum worthy haha)

if I can I am going to keep the box the power supply was in because it looks super neat, but if I can't then I'll just have it sitting around until I can figure out how to scoop out the internals with out hurting myself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Couple of ebay items I noticed today if people are interested:

 

Loose, but cheap 23 Galatic Space War in US: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/fairchild-channel-f-cart-23-galactic-space-war-rare-label-over-label-variant/164130729171?hash=item2636f42cd3:g:V5cAAOSwoSxectCp

13 SABA Memory in fairly good condition (That is no. 15 in US line) in Germany: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SABA-Videoplay-Videocart-13-MEMORY-Vintage-Fairchild-Channel-F-Computer-Game/392740778851?hash=item5b712cb363:g:pbAAAOSwpIBefc~k

 

I had this before I managed to get a fairchild one, works exactly the same!

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On 3/1/2020 at 12:27 PM, e5frog said:

So what's a "complete" collection?

One cart of each commercially available 1-26 + Democart? Including their boxes, instruction booklets and warranty cards + grey pamphlet (who knows what was originally in a package)? Eldest version possible of these? Maybe also the alternate #22 (visibly different) and #17 (not that different, there's an alternate ROM). Box variations? The German variations and the two German only releases (4 different carts)? A complete set of all European releases? All variations of the European releases? All PCB variations in all variations of all carts? All variations of everything before 1990? Pac-Man, Multi-Cart, Kevin vs Tomatoes, Trimerous, Tetris, Democart 2? Werbetextcassette? All carts ever made?   ;-)

 

There's one known of these, it's not unlikely others where made for other companies as well. 

label.videocart.werb.jpg


 

Where do you draw the line for a complete set? 

Personally, when I'm collecting I go for a complete commercially released USA set, so videocarts #1-#26. I keep flipflopping on including the Democart though.

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5 hours ago, poppalarge said:

Personally, when I'm collecting I go for a complete commercially released USA set, so videocarts #1-#26. I keep flipflopping on including the Democart though.

Everyone has their own definition of complete. Personally I don’t think the Democart should be a part of a full set (even though I have one).  

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58 minutes ago, Atari_Bill said:

Everyone has their own definition of complete. Personally I don’t think the Democart should be a part of a full set (even though I have one).  

I'm curious, what is your reasoning? I have reasons for and against, but I always want to hear what others think.

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1 hour ago, poppalarge said:

I'm curious, what is your reasoning? I have reasons for and against, but I always want to hear what others think.

To me, a cart has to have been available to buy on the store shelf back in the day to be part of the set.  The democart was not available for the average person to buy.

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6 hours ago, Atari_Bill said:

To me, a cart has to have been available to buy on the store shelf back in the day to be part of the set.  The democart was not available for the average person to buy.

The last carts were only available through mail order AFAIK, which includes Democart for a while. Dennis should know, his site has detailed information from letters and pamphlets. 

 

I'd define a complete American collection as carts 1-26 and Democart of at least one label/box/instruction version. 

 

Next level would be all original consumer software releases including German versions of 1, 3, 18 (similar to Hangman and numbered 16) and 20 (Chess). Next would be to include Democart 2, not sold to consumers, as well as Werbetextcassette, then the prototypecarts...

Then all print variations, pamphlets and letters. 

That should be it for carts from back in the day, some only owned by one person. 

Including new cart releases in chronological order: Multi-Cart (different software releases), Pac-Man (different software releases),  Retrogathering Pac-Man contest (1 cart), Retrogathering picture slideshow with music and scroll text (actually not on the Multi-Cart, 1 cart), Kevin vs Tomatoes (10 carts), the CC2019 intro, trimerous (presumed release year 2020), Tetris (presumed release year 2020).

Then there's various unreleased betas not released on cart - even on the Multi-Cart - unfinished stuff. atari2600land has made some playable ones. Such things that could be hidden on a cart like Easter Eggs... (but hasn't been - yet). 

 

 

 

Edited by e5frog
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3 hours ago, e5frog said:

The last carts were only available through mail order AFAIK, which includes Democart for a while. Dennis should know, his site has detailed information from letters and pamphlets. 

 

I'd define a complete American collection as carts 1-26 and Democart of at least one label/box/instruction version. 


 

 

 

 

I wasn’t aware that the democart was available via mail order. Interesting. 

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Yeah according to the docs on FND's site they offered it for sale through mail order for a month and then later offered it as the free game in a buy 4 carts, get 1 free promo. That makes me want to assume that they actually had them on hand to sell and send out, unlike the Keyboard carts which were also only on sale for a month.

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Someone is selling some nice CIB sets of the high numbers on ebay, the only problem is they are x2-x5 the price that I would regard is sensible. It looks like our $900 Whizball has been noticed by other sellers too, as the same person is asking a whopping $1,250 for it!

 

They are also selling what appears to be a model 1 console, with a plain box and some Zircon promotional stuff for... yep you guessed it. $999.95

 

Edit: My sense of a "full collection" for fairchild channel F would be the main numbered line 1-26, plus the SABA Chess program. Democarts and foreign language copies is bonuses, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Just Checkers for me to go! Never going to happen.

 

In all honesty I'm even a bit funny about whether special mail order games should be counted either. Its not general release if it didn't appear on a shop shelf. This gets funny with other consoles as well, for example the Turbografx had a PAL console, but not PAL games, technically no games got released in Europe, but obviously the import market was considerable for that console.

Edited by Mikebloke
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4 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Someone is selling some nice CIB sets of the high numbers on ebay, the only problem is they are x2-x5 the price that I would regard is sensible. It looks like our $900 Whizball has been noticed by other sellers too, as the same person is asking a whopping $1,250 for it!

 

They are also selling what appears to be a model 1 console, with a plain box and some Zircon promotional stuff for... yep you guessed it. $999.95

 

Edit: My sense of a "full collection" for fairchild channel F would be the main numbered line 1-26, plus the SABA Chess program. Democarts and foreign language copies is bonuses, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Just Checkers for me to go! Never going to happen.

 

In all honesty I'm even a bit funny about whether special mail order games should be counted either. Its not general release if it didn't appear on a shop shelf. This gets funny with other consoles as well, for example the Turbografx had a PAL console, but not PAL games, technically no games got released in Europe, but obviously the import market was considerable for that console.

Yeah I was watching #20 out of curiosity and I got a message the vendor was offering me a "deal" at $1000. I told him thank you but the last time I saw that game go CIB it was $80 and that #19 which is the rarest, along with a console and a group of other games just went for $795. I received no reply..lol. What's goin on fella's, Since when did FCF start becoming Neo Geo AES? 

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7 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Edit: My sense of a "full collection" for fairchild channel F would be the main numbered line 1-26, plus the SABA Chess program. Democarts and foreign language copies is bonuses, as far as I'm concerned.

 

Just Checkers for me to go! Never going to happen.

 

In all honesty I'm even a bit funny about whether special mail order games should be counted either. Its not general release if it didn't appear on a shop shelf. This gets funny with other consoles as well, for example the Turbografx had a PAL console, but not PAL games, technically no games got released in Europe, but obviously the import market was considerable for that console.

I try to compare similar cases from other complete sets when looking at systems like these.

 

What I mean is this: Democart-1 was released for the Channel F, but software-wise it's just hockey, which already came built into the system.

On the one hand, you could compare it to Mine Storm for the Vectrex. I'm not sure it's physical release is counted towards a "complete set" because the game is already built into the Vectrex. You could also apply that logic to the double enders for the 2600. If you have a double ender, you don't need to get the single cartridge versions of those games because you already have the software to count towards a "complete set" of the 2600, whatever that may be.

 

On the other hand, the NES, which has an officially licensed set of games, counts their 3 or 4 compilation cartridges as part of a complete set, even though those games had previously come out on individual cartridges. So to me, the Democart is a grey area. Yes it came out, yes it was released by the company manufacturing Channel Fs at that time so there is no worry about it being licensed or not, but in reality the software is already on the first system so it's a duplicate.

 

As for mail order, I mostly agree with you, but trying to figure out if something had a retail release, especially on the 2600, is a pain in the ass.

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12 hours ago, poppalarge said:

Is the democart not just built-in hockey with instructions?

Well... the "computer aided teaching"-instructions is what is the Democart, I think it uses the console hockey code for display etc and final option to play.
... and there's an Easter Egg as well. 
Democart 2 is "just" pictures of games with titles (not all of them the release title) Black Jack doesn't even display properly - due to delay after gfx loading is too short. You get nothing on a fast machine and stripes on a newer version. MESS runs it fine, it has no such limitations. 

If collecting games to play there's no reason to get neither one nor the other. 

 

Edited by e5frog
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